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Thursday, March 6, 2014

Today, walking along a road very close to my home in Tokyo, living a Travelife, I passed a fashionable new restaurant that had just opened this winter.

It's the first Japan restaurant of Patina, a famous fine dining Relais & Chateaux restaurant in Los Angeles run by celebrity chef Joachim Splichal.

Patina in Los Angeles has been around for 24 years.

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THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

Seeing this just a few minutes' walk away made me very happy, as I'm always glad to have great new restaurants in my vicinity.

So just like that, we decided to try it on the spot.

I was actually thinking of having sushi for lunch, but suddenly I couldn't resist trying this new restaurant in my neighborhood.

FULL OF FASHIONABLE PEOPLE

This is the bar at the entrance to the restaurant proper

When we went in, it was crowded with a pretty fashionable group of diners. Lots of women with six-figure handbags and men in designer suits.

By Tokyo standards, too, the menu was pretty reasonable -- especially considering this is the outpost of a famous Relais & Chateaux restaurant with a celebrity chef.

A FOUR-COURSE TASTING MENU

We tried the tasting menu with four courses, and I was very impressed. It's not food I would jump up and down for, but it was very good. You could also see that they carefully picked high-quality ingredients.

The plating was also beautiful without being overdone, and every dish whispered rather than shouted loveliness.

DISHES OF DELIGHT

The first course was a salad with lime crisps and grapefruit slices.

The medley of sweet, sour and salty flavors was very pleasant and refreshing, especially for a winter day.

I also loved the pasta, which came with a tomato clam sauce and sour cream. Who would have thought that would work? It was lovely.

For a main course, we had a perfectly done Black Rock fish on a bed of farro risotto. Again, this was a clear winner and the fish was so wonderfully done.

THE BEST CHOCOLATE CAKE I'VE HAD

IN A LONG TIME

But the piece de resistance today was the chocolate cake at the end.

It was so small that I considered ordering another one a la carte.

But this just has to be the most delectable and luscious chocolate cake I have had in a long time, in a life full of wonderful meals at great restaurants all over the world, living a never-ending, and never-endingly eventful Travelife.